This chapter is an attempt to build a stronger connection between the theoretical debates on personhood in anthropology, dating back at least to Mauss’s 1938 lecture on the notion of the person, and ethnographic material on the subject gathered in the Middle East and Iran in particular. The latter, while rich and detailed, is not often analyzed in comparative perspective or related back to the vigorous theoretical debates that have focused on other regions. As the two contrasting quotes above demonstrate, we have not really had the last word on whether persons in the Middle East are “individual” or “dividual,”...
